Packers officially punt on 2023 season at trade deadline
At 2-5 and riding a four-game losing streak, it isn't terribly surprising that the Green Bay Packers decided to pack it in for 2023, but it is a bit shocking how quickly Green Bay has fallen from grace.
Just over a month ago, the Packers were riding high after beating the Chicago Bears to start the season. Quarterback Jordan Love looked like a legitimate successor to Aaron Rodgers, and general manager Brian Gutekunst looked like a genius.
The hype surrounding Love and the Packers after that game should serve as a warning against Week 1 overreactions. Love has simply regressed since that game and looks more like a backup than Green Bay's third straight Hall of Fame-bound quarterback. Head coach Matt LaFleur has looked lost on the sideline and sounds even more lost when asked about his flailing team.
And Gutekunst? Just a few months after trading Rodgers to the New York Jets in order to usher in a new era of Packers football featuring an exciting and athletic youth movement, he punted on 2023.
He traded away cornerback Rasul Douglas, arguably the leader of Green Bay's defense, to the Buffalo Bills.
Sure, the Packers still have 10 games to play — and yes, the young players (especially Love) can still turn it around and at least show some improvement and reason to hope for the future — but what kind of confidence does Gutekunst have in this experiment working if he just traded away arguably one of the only players that gave Green Bay a shot to win on a week-to-week basis?
They'll never admit it, but this was a tank move by Gutekunst and the Packers. With quarterbacks like USC's Caleb Williams and UNC's Drake Maye expected to be available in the 2024 NFL Draft, this trade just may signal the beginning of the end of the Love era in Green Bay.
Either way, dealing Douglas is proof that the brass in Green Bay doesn't expect much more from the Packers in 2023. That's a strange place to be for a franchise that has been a perennial contender since the 1990s, but that's life in the NFL.
You're either it, or you're not.
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